As well as undertaking the “mud fest” which is the Anglezarke Challenge at the end of next Winter I have also resolved to participate in another all day Long Distance Path – The Sefton Coastal Path. Readers of this blog will be all too aware that I am now quite accustomed to walking the entire length of Southport’s Coastal Road/Marine Drive, the Sefton Coastal Path utilises a good deal of this road – not all of it, but enough to kindle my interest.
The walk can obviously start from either Marshside or Crosby – when I do the walk in full I shall catch the train from Southport down to Crosby then essentially walk back. The route extends from The Crosby Lakeside Adventure Centre passing through the Ainsdale and Formby Nature Reserves and the following areas: Crosby, Hightown, Formby, Freshfields, Ainsdale, Birkdale, Southport and Marshside. There will be much in the way of flatlands but perhaps the biggest obstacles are the numerous Sand Dunes that don’t normally facilitate swift foot progress! Fortunately, I won’t be spending the usual amount of time avoiding being hit by cyclists on the Coastal Road stretch…I’ll be avoiding these in Crosby for a couple of miles, the Coastal Road stretch sees me scaling the self same Sand Dunes that I’ve been driving and walking passed for the last twelve years…and some of them are big! The sections I am looking forward to the most – not just the last ten yards, are the nature reserves at Ainsdale (which always looks enticing from the road) and at Formby Point that I have visited on a number of occasions but never as part of a larger walk…I am quite excited at the prospect of this in particular.
Common sense dictates that I leave it a couple of weeks before setting of to do this – although a part of me wants there to be snow and to have the unique experience of walking on snowy Sand Dunes, can you imagine? In the meanwhile I shall put in another Coastal Stretch practice walk…probably this Saturday or if the weather is bad then Sunday, it never rains ALL weekend does it?
With regards to these Day-long, Long Distance Paths, if by this time next year (give or take a fortnight) I have done the following:
The Sefton Coastal Path
The Anglezarke Amble
The Three Towers Walk
and
The Three Peaks of Yorkshire (yes, I am showing vast amounts of interest in that once more)
I’ll have done reet well – knew that was going to upset the spell checker!
